Google operates a little-known program to harness the brain power of university researchers to help sway opinion and public policy, cultivating financial relationships with professors at campuses from Harvard University to the University of California, Berkeley.

Over the past decade, Google has helped finance hundreds of research papers to defend against regulatory challenges of its market dominance, paying $5,000 to $400,000 for the work, The Wall Street Journal found.

This is some next-level manipulation. I wasn't kidding when I said we, as a society, need to look at the amount of power we have let corporations gather up. This kind of influence isn't healthy for society.

Private corporations already have full control in the US. The Federal Reserve (which is not federal and has relatively few reserves) pays the government, making the government just a bunch of hired thugs for private bankers.

no no no, you got that all wrong. You see they now elected a president who was self-funding and doesn't accept a salary so their leader is completely independent from all this money-influencing-government and he is going to drain the swamp and make America great again

no no no, you got that all wrong. You see they now elected a president who was self-funding and doesn't accept a salary so their leader is completely independent from all this money-influencing-government and he is going to drain the swamp and make America great again

/s

Whoever controls the money supply controls the country. There is no getting around it. Trump too will need the Federal Reserve to print more money for him. So he too will need to be a good boy and obey.

Besides if Trump really gets independent he will be assasinated like JFK was and then a new puppet will be put in his place.

Personally, I get worried any large entity or conglomerate holds too much power. Governments and corporations are, when you break them down, essentially the same: run by people with their own interests at heart, and out to support themselves. The only real difference, as I see it, between corporations and governments are that governments pretend they do it to serve you while businesses are honest about their desire to make money. Both amazingly good things and horrible atrocities have come out of both government and business alike, so I'm not going to pretend that either is better.